The Love Experiment

by Paton, Ainslie

  That accounted for the flounce and the immense amount of chocolate eaten in the last day and a half and confirmed Derelie’s wise monkey decision to play it on the Maisy Brownlow with Shona. Now she wouldn’t have to admit she’d gotten the whole Elaine’s thing upside down.

  “I’m back to, why me?”

  “You’re doing me a favor. Can’t you simply enjoy the meal?”

  Arrogant dinkus. “Look, I’m not some desperado who needs to be taken out for a good feed.”

  “You said you wanted to learn the tricks.” He looked up. The smashed brow didn’t take anything away from him being a handsome late-ass, rat-faced piece of work. “This is a trick.”

  Right, this was Jackson Haley playing the mentor. He was so bad at it. “I understand now.”

  He went back to whatever he was doing on his cell. Derelie studied her nails. She’d tried shellac for the first time. Her hands looked like they belonged to someone else. Stakeouts were boring.

  “Can I ask another question?”

  He closed his eyes, and he didn’t look up. “As long as it’s not from the idiotic experiment.”

  No point asking about his most treasured memory. “Why is it important to see these people having a meal together?”

  That got his interest. They were sitting opposite each other in a horseshoe-shaped booth. She’d sat facing the door so she could see him come in, which meant the bulk of the restaurant was behind her.

  “Slide over,” he said, indicating the center of the semi-circular seat. She eased closer and now had a better view of the main seating area as well as the door.

  He quarter-turned to her and pitched his voice low. “I need to prove the CEO of Keepsafe personally knows a couple of doctors who are helping him rob legitimately insured people of their injury payouts.”

  “Seeing them share a meal is proof.”

  He nodded. “It doesn’t prove they’re in it together to commit a crime, but proving they know each other well enough to share an expensive meal is a good start.”

  “Disappointing if they don’t show.”

  “It was a good tip-off, I think they’ll show. By bringing you, I can pass this off as a coincidence. I’m just here to share a meal with a friend.”

  He could’ve bought a real friend or any of the team on the business pages for that. There was activity at the door. “What does this guy we’re spying on look like?”

  “Bix is in his sixties, tall, thin, bald, wears a hearing aid.”

  “We have contact.” Jack smiled, and Derelie was so distracted by it she almost missed the fact that Bix was on his way over. “Close contact.”

  “Jackson Haley.” Bix approached their table. “Ouch.” He touched his own brow. “Glad to see they pay the Defender of the City enough to eat at Elaine’s. I trust you didn’t get that bump in the service of the Courier.”

  Jack went to stand with a hand out to shake, but Bix motioned him to stay seated. He had narrow, squinty eyes, and they drilled into Derelie. “And who is this?”

  “Robert, this is Honey.” Jack cut himself off abruptly enough Bix frowned. Derelie saved him by sliding closer, mashing his suit coat between them to rest her head on his shoulder.

  “It’s my birthday,” she said, prompted by the cake topped with sparklers being delivered to a table across the room.

  “Well, isn’t that lovely? Happy birthday, Honey. You show your girl a good time now, Haley.”

  Derelie grinned at Mr. Bob “Probably Going to be Consulting Lawyers About a Story in the Courier Soon” Bix, and inspired by a racing pulse and utter wickedness kissed Jack’s cheek.

  Up close he smelled of sweet, spicy cinnamon. Under the table he made a grab for her thigh, the muscles in his side going hard. He turned his face and his eyes were open wide behind their frames, brows lifted above them. He had an unforgiving grip on her leg. She licked her lips. All her boldness deserted her.

  “Better make a good show of it,” he muttered, and kissed her on the mouth.

  It was so quick she might’ve dreamed it. He was already back in his own personal space, wishing Mr. Bob “Fooled by a Kiss” Bix a good evening before she could process it. The first kiss of her new city life and it’d happened with a difficult, intimidating man she wasn’t sure she liked despite his attempt to show her some tricks.

  “You started it,” he said, when Bix was safely on the other side of the restaurant.

  A difficult, intimidating, argumentative man. Not much she could say to that, other than, are you five years old? It seemed redundant asking him what roles love and affection played in his life, question nine. Wild guess, not much of a one.

  She moved around the seat to her own place, reached for her water glass and sipped. She couldn’t tell how annoyed Jack was, his expression gave nothing away. “I’m sorry if I overstepped. He looked suspicious and I got carried away.”

  “I’m not mad.” Jack smiled, all the way to his stitched brow. “That was inspired, Honeywell.”

  Man had an awfully nice smile on his handsome rat-face. The kind that made you want to see it again and again and forgive his terrible choice of underwear and that he thought of you as a decoy and had no use for love and affection.

  Damn.

  Further lack of discussion was forestalled by the arrival of the meal. Fish for Derelie, steak for Jack. His meal looked better. But never mind post-choice dissonance, the food was a-maze-ing. For a girl used to eating at cheap diners, or alone in her shoebox, this might as well have been a special occasion.

  “It’s not really my birthday.”

  Jack’s attention was over her shoulder, on the other men taking seats at Bix’s table. “I didn’t think it was.”

  This was almost a conversation. She could ask him question ten, which was “If you could change anything about the way you were raised, what would it be?” because she didn’t think he’d cope with question eleven, which was, “In four minutes, tell your partner your life story in as much detail as possible.”

  She went with “What got you into investigative reporting?”

  He went with “What got you into writing junk listicles?”

  The movement was involuntary. She wiped her mouth with her fingertips. Now she knew exactly how she felt about that kiss. Why did she keep forgetting Jackson Haley was nothing more than the thrill of the chase and the headlines he wrote? He kept telling her, so it wasn’t as if he was dazzling the good sense out of her. She had a weird thing for him and she needed to slap her own face. She wanted to track down one of those buses with his Defender of the City face plastered on it and draw horns and a pointed goatee on it.

  “Fuck. Sorry, Honeywell.” He rubbed at his neck. “I’m a sad excuse for a dinner date.”

  No debate about that.

  “It’s not like I was ever conned or ripped off and have a stake in avenging myself against the world. I had a privileged upbringing. This is how I choose to make use of it. And you’re doing your job, so I have no reason to be such an asshole. You’re helping me out and without what you did, I don’t know if Bix and friends would be quite so relaxed. They’re on a third bottle of wine, they really do think I’m off the clock.”

  She ate a few green beans, cooked so they tasted like something bad for you—absolutely delicious.

  “What do you want to write?” he said.

  If this wasn’t a new dress kind of place, she’d ask for a piece of bread to soak up the rest of the yum sauce on her plate.

  Jack laughed. “Touché, Honeywell. I wouldn’t talk to me either.”

  She looked up; he was focused on her with those dark blue, glass-barricaded eyes. He’d asked a question. She’d read that clove cigarettes could numb your tongue, but—Jackson Haley, living dinkus, had asked her a question. “Do you really want to know?”

  “Y
ou’ve already worked out I’m no good with chitchat. I’m interested.”

  It wasn’t flattering. So why was there an odd flutter in her chest? Too weird. “Words matter. Maybe now more than ever. All we’ve got to influence people with is words. They’re still powerful, they still make a difference.”

  Oh God, now her face got hot. She sounded like a naïve college kid, high on her own self-importance.

  “Go on.”

  She looked at her plate. “I know the traditional newspaper business is dying, but journalism isn’t, and it’s not all listicles and celebrity updates, it can’t be. I want to learn everything I can about being a reporter, about using words to influence people, so I have options in the future.” She lifted her eyes to his face, better to know if he was going to mock her before he did it. “I know to you that will sound lacking in ambition, but I come from a town where there’s very little choice about what work you do, and if you want to do anything important, you have to wait till the person already doing it dies or moves away. This is my chance to build a career with work I enjoy and I’m not going to mess it up.”

  He sipped his water—no wine for them—but kept his eyes on her. “They’re teaching computers how to do what we do.”

  She’d read about it. Computer programs that could create written content, could write entire books made from popular tropes and plotlines.

  “Terrifies me,” he said. “The Courier is already using computer-generated content in business and sports.”

  “My parents thought I was making a bad decision moving here, taking this job. Thought it was too risky, that I should try for something safer.” But she’d already had years of safe decisions and they’d led to stagnation professionally and a string of relationships so lacking in spark it was no wonder she lusted after a man-bun and got tense around the human headline.

  “Hard to know what would be safe from change.”

  The family farm was safe. It was three generations of corn, and a life of juggling a bank overdraft. “If I have to go home, I want to know I tried to make the most of my life.”

  Jack was silent, probably stunned by her lack of sophistication. His study of her was unnerving. She flapped a hand at him. “What?”

  “If you could wake up tomorrow having gained any one quality or ability, what would it be?”

  Hah, so he’d read the questions. That was number twelve. “You really want to know?”

  “Entirely for my own amusement.”

  “Does it hurt?” She smoothed her own eyebrow.

  He scrunched his face. “I’ve had a headache for two days. You’re stalling.”

  “I’d like to feel like I’m worthy. Like I’m tough enough to make it on my own. Like no one can stop me, get in my way. I want to feel powerful and in control and in charge of my own destiny.” She wanted to be professionally as tough and skilled as Jack.

  “And you don’t feel like that now?”

  She felt small and confused and uncertain. She’d never felt less like she fitted in or more lost and lonely. Her chest felt tight. She shook her head.

  He raised his glass to her. “Could’ve fooled me, Honeywell.”

  Chapter Eight

  Jack had lost count of the number of times he’d upset this woman. He’d tried to make conversation, even used a question from the ridiculous experiment, and managed to do it again. Ordering dessert wasn’t going to make things right, but it gave him something to do while Honeywell composed herself like he’d had to after she’d pulled that stunt kissing him and he’d made the whole thing one hundred times more awkward by kissing her back.

  Jesus Christ. He’d kissed her lips. Maybe worse, he’d had a death grip on her thigh that would probably bruise, all four fingers rucking her dress between her legs. He didn’t know how to bring that up, to apologize, without making things even more impossible.

  And now she sat across from him thinking she wasn’t worthy, and everything he’d shown her to date reinforced that view. He was a useless human being. If he could wake up tomorrow having gained any one new skill—question twelve—it would be the ability to consider the feelings of others before he opened his mouth.

  She ordered the chocolate spaghetti with strawberries and green tea. He chose the North Carolina pecan cake and coffee. When the plates arrived they both coveted each other’s order more and swapped.

  Meanwhile, Bob Bix and his cronies were tucking into soufflés and moving on to dessert wine. If Jack wasn’t distracted by how quiet Honeywell was, he’d be writing paragraphs in his head.

  She kept her eerie eyes down on her plate, so he could look at her without being caught out. Her complexion wasn’t milk and roses, and it wasn’t bought at Macy’s and troweled on. She’d seen a lot of sunshine in her life, a lot of weather, and it had given her freckles, given her skin a kind of depth that didn’t come from hours in front of a mirror. There was something about her hands that told him she was more than he understood as well. A fine white scar ran across the last three knuckles of her left hand, short nails, polished a bright pink she kept touching as if she wasn’t sure of the texture or the color. Those hands had done more than worry a keyboard.

  She wore no jewelry, no bobbing earrings or jangling bracelets, nothing that flashed or glittered. Her watch was serviceable, a nothing brand. Those absences were remarkable. He’d lay a bet on her hair being wildly curly when it wasn’t styled. And another on the fact she hadn’t worn heels all her adult life.

  He’d say she was playacting at being the kind of grown-up woman who painted her nails, but it wasn’t like she wobbled in her shoes or chose awful lipstick or wore too much perfume, and the dress was a knockout, a fabric that had felt silky under his hand.

  Whatever those observations added up to, it was enough to make his skin go tight with feeling. It was a bad idea to feel anything for Honeywell. He kept sex out of the work equation. He should never have invited her here, decoy or not; she was a distraction he needed to dispense with, guilt he needed to find another way to deal with.

  Fists were good for that, but he’d already tried to have the sense of her beaten out of him and he couldn’t do that again for a few weeks. Tired beyond thought was good. If he was going to stay ahead of Bix and the Keepsafe fraud story, he had a long few weeks of work ahead.

  She sipped at her green tea and he realized they’d been silent for some time. “You don’t seem brittle to me, Honeywell.”

  She closed her mouth around a forkful of cake and double blinked. Brittle, what kind of a word was that to use? He made it sound like he’d considered her readiness to shatter and found it, to his imminent satisfaction. What a bastard of a thing to say.

  “I mean, I’m sure you’ll make it.”

  She rubbed her lips together. It was a very quick kiss and he hadn’t caught the flavor of her, but then he had no right to that—he could barely make conversation with her. What he’d just said was the equivalent of patting her on the head like a good dog.

  He dropped his eyes to a safer place than her lips, a new message on his cell, and she said, “Keep digging.” She was blurry when he looked at her over the top of his glasses, but he didn’t miss the cheeky smile. “Every time you open your mouth you dig a bigger hole.”

  “That appears to be the case.”

  She made an open-handed flourish. “Can write like a god, but can’t make small talk with his decoy date.”

  “See, you’re not brittle at all.”

  She pushed her plate away. “I’m too well fed to be brittle.”

  “You look like you’re in good shape.” Oh shit, was there no end to his shoveling. Good shape, like she was a boxer. One, what the hell was he doing commenting on her figure, two, she was fucking gorgeous, and three, shut the fuck up.

  “You are a crack up, Jackson Haley. This is the best fake birthday date I’ve
ever been on.”

  It was also over. Robert Bix was on the move. Jack’s need to hear him say the names of the other two men he’d dined with to confirm they were Michael Whelan and Manny Noakes had him on his feet, credit card in hand. While the other men were dithering over their coats, he paid up and hustled Honeywell outside, seconds before Bix came through the door with his guests. He’d wanted to find a place to stand where he would still hear but not be seen, but there was no time. He put his hands to Honeywell’s shoulders and backed her into the restaurant’s glass wall.

  She made a sharp sound of surprise and her hands went to his chest. He managed to stop her smacking her head on the black glass before he brought their foreheads together. Her peppermint breath puffed across his mouth and she twined her hands around his neck.

  “Not brittle at all,” she said.

  There was that floral scent, there were those curvy hips he’d tried not to notice. She felt good in his arms despite the fact he’d bumped his brow and knocked his glasses askew.

  Two feet from them Bix said, “Ah, Michael, next meal is on you,” and Michael—possibly Whelan—said, “No, no, it’s on Manny.”

  Jack adjusted his glasses while Manny—possibly Noakes—agreed. “Are they paying any attention to us?” Derelie’s eyes were wide pools of opalescent wonder, centered on his face. He could only see his suspects as shadows on the glass wall. “Honeywell.”

  She turned her head sharply toward Bix and friends. “No. They’re drunk. What should I do?”

  “Pretend this is not making your skin crawl.”

  She shook her head, but he didn’t have time to interpret that. Bix was on his phone to his car service. “Pick up for Michael Whelan,” he said, and gave what Jack prayed was Whelan’s home address. Bix did the same for Manny—most definitely Noakes—of a very fashionable address by the lake. Jack had double confirmation, full names and addresses, which Bix knew without prompting after more alcohol than was sensible for a man of his age.

  These men knew each other well enough to be colluding, just as Henri Costa’s information suggested. They were scum and Jack would expose them. But right now he needed to avoid the same fate.